Our Warplanes Can Reach Iran, Israeli Minister Warns Amid Nuclear Talks

• Our Warplanes Can Reach Iran, Israeli Minister Warns Amid Nuclear Talks
  by REUTERS, https://www.arabnews.com/
  * Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen said: “A bad deal will send the region spiralling into war”
  * “Israel will not allow Iran to attain nuclear arms. Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our planes can reach everywhere in the Middle East — and certainly Iran,” he said
  –
  JERUSALEM: An Israeli cabinet minister sharpened his country’s warnings against what it would deem a bad new nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, saying war with Tehran would be sure to follow.
  –
  As President Joe Biden explores a possible US return to the 2015 deal to contain Iran’s nuclear program that his predecessor Donald Trump abandoned, Israel has stepped up calls for more sweeping curbs to be imposed on sensitive Iranian technologies and projects.
  –
  Iran, which this week resumed indirect talks with US envoys in Vienna on reversing its retaliatory violations of the deal in exchange for the removal of sanctions reimposed by Trump, has ruled out any further limitations on Iranian actions.
  –
  Reiterating Israel’s position that it does not consider itself bound by the diplomacy, Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen said: “A bad deal will send the region spiralling into war.”
  –
  “Anyone seeking short-term benefits should be mindful of the longer-term,” he told Reuters. “Israel will not allow Iran to attain nuclear arms. Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our planes can reach everywhere in the Middle East — and certainly Iran.”
  –
  Iran says its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.
  Cohen said that in addition to denying Iran the means of enriching uranium and developing ballistic missiles, world powers should make it stop “destabilising other countries” and funding militants.
  –
  The Vienna talks have been overshadowed by what appeared to be mutual sabotage attacks on Israeli and Iranian ships, as well as an explosion at Iran’s Natanz enrichment plant that Tehran blamed on Israel.
  –
  Cohen, in keeping with Israeli policy, declined all comment.
  Israel sent senior delegates to Washington this week to discuss Iran with US counterparts. The White House said the allies agreed on the “significant threat” posed by Iran’s regional behavior.
  –
  read more.

• criminals and crime fighters
  The Israeli nuclear bomb is both an open and an official state secret. The Israeli media keep a low profile. Nationals who break the silence are imprisoned for years and harassed before the eyes of the world – like the researcher Mordechai Vanunu. He was kidnapped by the Mossad in 1986 and imprisoned in Israel for 18 years after publishing details about the Israeli nuclear reactor in England.

NEW: Israel is improving plans to strike Iranian nuclear targets, Defense Minister Benny Gantz tells mehttps://t.co/19GiARhYoy

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) March 4, 2021

• Israel Has 80-90 Nukes, SIPRI Report Says, as Tel Aviv Continues to Accuse Iran of Nuclear Obsession
  by https://www.rt.com/
  Israel, which routinely accuses Iran of trying to obtain nuclear weapons and pledges to use force to stop Tehran, maintains its own undeclared nuclear arsenal estimated at 80 to 90, according to the latest report by SIPRI.
  –
  There are nine nations in the world that currently have nuclear weapons, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says in its newly released yearbook on the state of armaments and international security. The world nuclear stockpile went from 14,465 at the beginning of last year to about 13,865 this year, the report estimates, as the US and Russia were delivering on their promises under the New START Treaty signed in 2010.
  –
  Israel, which maintains a policy of neither confirming nor denying the possession of nuclear weapons, has between 80 and 90 warheads in its stockpile, the same as the year before, the institute said.
  –
  It comes as tensions between Iran on one side, and the US and regional ally Israel on the other, continue to mount. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s unsinkable prime minister, has for years waged a campaign accusing the Iranians of having unwavering nuclear ambitions, regardless of the evidence, or lack thereof.
  –
  read more.

“Iran doesn’t frighten me and I don’t think it should frighten the American people. They don’t have a bomb. They haven’t made a decision to build one. They don’t have the means to deliver one. And the Israelis have 300 atomic bombs! I mean who presents the existential threat to whom?” – Pat Buchanan (7:58 onwards)

end